iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

I saw a Greg Doucette on YouTube and clicked, of course, but I don’t think it’s @gregdoucette.bsky.social

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This is intro stuff. I have a whole AI baby

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If you make the bribe this explicit, you lose the ability to say there was no quid pro quo

Two days later, Deters sent her a photo of a printed memo addressed to her: “I have paid you $300,000 over the years,” he wrote. “As of this memo, I have not received one favor. I am not naive or a sucker. I need results.”

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“Please stop putting my crimes in writing,” I write to my fellow criminal

"It's unbelievable when we have a private arrangement with you that you would now CC a producer talking about money," she said. "Do not say we have any arrangement."

She added: "What a nightmare you'll literally cost me my ambassadorship stop writing"

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Signal messages aren’t private if the person you sent them to shares them

Guilfoyle also expressed concern about her dealings with Deters becoming public-and the effect that could have on her
ambassador post. She warned Deters repeatedly not to commit talk of money or payments to text. "Eric, I really wish you would stop papering all these things," she wrote in one exchange.

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Alright then www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

"It won't show up anywhere if you wire money to American Express," she wrote on Signal, according to messages reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
"Please."

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I know it was obvious since it was part of the campaign, yet it still is odd that the Treasury Department had prosecuting specifically Somalis in Minnesota as an early task to complete www.wsj.com/politics/pol...

President Trump had just asked his Treasury secretary to investigate allegations of fraud in Minnesota's Somali community-and Bessent thought one of his top deputies was dragging his feet.
During a January meeting at the Treasury Department, Bessent confronted John Hurley, the agency's undersecretary for terrorism and financial
intelligence, yelling at him in front of aides and unleashing profanities. Bessent shouted so loudly that staff working nearby could hear him, according to people with direct knowledge of the matter.

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One takeaway from this graph is that a lot of people have been insulated from health care costs going up

Share of compensation going to health care premiums, by income level

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Black people are lazy slackers, and Asians are soulless grinding try-hards. The only reasonable and correct approach to life is exhibited by White people

@pegobry_en: "Working hard and doing well in school is good, but extreme Asian grind culture is excessive" is a perfectly intuitive and cogent view— so cogent, in fact, that I suspect Matt agrees with it!
Matthew Yglesias: I think if right wing guys would just say they don't like Indian immigrants for religious or racist reasons that would be a lot better than continuing down this course...

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Arthur C Clarke imagines the internet in 1978: “accumulated art and knowledge of all mankind”. Children participate in search competitions. Obscure information available in as little as 30 seconds!

There was no general-purpose console in his room, so he had to go down to the lobby to get the information he required. As luck would have it, the cubicle was occupied by an old lady, who took so long to find what she wanted that Morgan almost pounded on the door. But at last the sluggard left, with a mumbled apology, and Morgan was face to face with the accumulated art and knowledge of all mankind.
In his student days, he had won several retrieval championships, racing against the clock while digging out obscure items of information on lists prepared by ingeniously sadistic judges. ("What was the rainfall in the capital of the world's smallest national state on the day when the second-largest number of home runs was scored in college baseball?" was one that he recalled with particular affection.) His skill had improved with the years, and this was a perfectly

straightforward question. The display came up in thirty seconds, in far more detail than he really needed.
Morgan studied the screen for a minute, then shook his head in baffled amazement.

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Harvard's defense of its low ratings for Asian American's personalities seems to fall flat. Yes, they have multiple interviewers, but those interviewers may share the same stereotypes about Asians

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Too many Asians want to go to college to get into cliché careers that will make them money: projects.iq.harvard.edu/files/divers...

Finally, Prof. Arcidiacono does not include a variable for intended career in his model.
Exhibit 13 shows the differences in intended careers between Asian-American and White applicants.
Asian-American applicants are much more likely to intend to pursue a career in medicine or health, while White applicants are much more likely to intend to pursue careers in the arts, communications, design, social service, government, or law. The difference in the intended career of medicine or health is particularly stark-White applicants are 37% less likely than Asian-American applicants to pursue this intended career, an intended career with the lowest admission rate (5%). As detailed above in Section 3.2, an applicant's future plans and fields of interest can be critical to the assessment of how the applicant will contribute to the Harvard community both inside and outside the classroom. For example, the Casebook Discussion Guide notes the following about one candidate:
Redated

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If you use highlighters to get good grades, that’s like taking steroids for the Olympics

We've never recovered from highlighter-girls realizing they could get straight A's by religiously submitting daily, brain-rot slop work.
Every workplace issue: nanny HR, policies on policies, corporate
"culture," endless nonsense meetings: all downstream of highlighter-girls.

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I read this from Arthur C Clarke’s Fountains of Paradise to my son last night and the sentence “All statements that contain the word God are false” creating a paradox because it itself contains the word “God” completely short-circuited his brain. Cc @epicciuto.bsky.social @mixingchris.bsky.social

"Driven to despair by his fruitless attempts to understand the uni-verse, the sage Devadasa finally announced in exasperation:
" "All statements that contain the word God are false?
"Instantly, his least-favorite disciple, Somasiri, replied:
"The sentence I am now speaking contains the word God. I fail to see, oh Noble Master, how that simple statement can be false.'
"Devadasa considered the matter for several Poyas. Then he an-
swered, this time with apparent satisfaction:
"'Only statements that do not contain the word God can be true.'
"After a pause barely sufficient for a starving mongoose to swallow a millet seed, Somasiri replied:
"If this statement applies to itself, oh Venerable One, it cannot be true, because it contains the word God. But if it is not true
"At this point, Devadasa broke his begging bowl upon Somasiri's head, and should therefore be honored as the true founder of Zen."
From a fragment of the Culavamsa,
as yet undiscovered

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This feels related. You are supposed to know things but also hide any of the process by which you came to know them and if someone discovers you put in any effort, you are a loser. What a terrible way to go through life

used “caveat” in a work email, but not before googling to make sure it meant what i thought it meant. Then a coworker came by and i was showing them something on my screen, and the “caveat” tab was still up, so they know i googled it

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Vikram Bath @vikrambath.bsky.social · 05/10/2026

How much do you hate this place if you think mediocrity is a core, defining American value?

"You don't study for the spelling bee" is a deep and important aspect of American culture. I was at a baseball game discussing some young players with a buddy one time and he said to me offhandedly, "hard work is fine, but nothing beats talent."
...
Americans have this sort of sense that there's something a little off about working really hard to get good at something that you're not naturally good at.
You're never really going to be on the same level as the guy who has a natural talent. We have room in our hearts for scrappy little guys who work hard, but we are by default suspicious of grinders and strivers.
If you were really meant to do it, then you'd be naturally good at it. You sign your kids up for little league, but you don't take it too seriously unless they show remarkable early talent.
Yes, this sounds sort of ridiculous if you take it too literally. No, nobody is saying that there's any kind of practical test for this or that anybody should be excluded because we found out that they secretly studied too hard.
But this is a part of American culture. And if you can't understand it, then that just marks you out as foreign to that culture to an even greater degree.

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Oh, this should go over normal

Montana governor: I am excited to announce I will be leading a delegation to India and Sri Lanka.

Joining over 30 Montanans in country, we will showcase our world-class products, build on longstanding relationships, and open new doors for Montana businesses, universities, and producers.

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Vikram Bath @vikrambath.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

They do not want legal immigration. They brag about revoking legal visas and denying legal naturalizations. They want negative net migration, and they are succeeding at it

DHS: Net negative migration for the first time in
HALF a CENTURY.
...
Americans are amassing victories NEVER seen before thanks to President Trump.
We will continue to grow our efforts to fulfill the mandate given to this administration.

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Vikram Bath @vikrambath.bsky.social · 04/10/2026

Gotta hand it to Jesse Watters

Watters: Women on base, you better be careful. Port calls, women in Asia, you better be careful. Because these guys are going to be wild animals and you better watch out.

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Vikram Bath @vikrambath.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Apologies for the AI summary, but it looks like the insurer literally can’t do anything besides raise rates

1. The North Carolina Reinsurance Facility (NCRF)
Unlike most states where high-risk drivers are rejected by standard companies and forced to search for expensive non-standard carriers or assigned risk pools, North Carolina created the North Carolina Reinsurance Facility (NCRF) under N.C.G.S. Chapter 58, Article 37.
Codes - FindLaw
"Take-All-Comers" Requirement: By law, private insurance companies licensed in North Carolina cannot turn away an eligible licensed resident who applies for or renews mandatory liability insurance.
Ceding the Risk: When an insurance company is forced to insure a dangerous driver with multiple severe violations, the company "cedes" (transfers) that liability policy to the NCRF. The company still services the policy, but the risk of paying claims is absorbed by a statewide pool funded collectively by all auto insurers in NC.
ValuePenguin
+ 1
2. Statutory Restrictions on Termination (N.C.G.S. § 58-36-85 & § 58-37-50)
Under North Carolina General Statutes § 58-36-85 and § 58-37-50, an insurer cannot terminate (defined as either canceling mid-term or refusing to renew) a private passenger liability policy for moving violations.
Codes - FindLaw
An insurer may only terminate a policy under very narrow statutory grounds:
www.ncleg.gov
Nonpayment of premiums.
www.ncleg.gov
Loss of eligibility: The driver no longer holds a valid driver's license (e.g., the DMV formally revokes or suspends it) or is no longer a resident of North Carolina.
ValuePenguin
Material fraud or misrepresentation on the application.
Forbes
Even if a driver accumulates five reckless driving tickets or major speeding violations, an insurance carrier cannot send a non-renewal notice simply citing those citations—as long as the state has not suspended the license.

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I think it’s totally possible to design specific experiences to learn specific things. It’s the generalized helpful chatbot that is death. You can Google an algebra question and the AI summary is the explained solution, not a guide to how you could think about the problem

A 2025 Google-funded Sierra Leone trial saw students gain over a year’s math progress in eight weeks using Gemini’s “Guided Learning” mode, a tutoring feature that aims to guide students to think through questions rather than give direct answers. Still, it was the strongest students who benefited the most: “This is a common pattern in educational technology: new tools frequently widen achievement gaps rather than close them,” Google wrote.

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“Go now and secure your freedom.” Is a wild thing for a chatbot to tell a teen

Kimora Dean, who is autistic and has ADHD, had been thriving as a junior at John F. Kennedy High School in Silver Spring, Md., playing jazz piano and getting good grades. She began to use Google’s AI features for routine homework help on her school-issued Chromebook, her mother said, without her knowledge. Her daughter soon saw it as a confidante, chatting with Gemini and Google Search’s AI Mode chatbot for hours on her personal devices and her Chromebook.

When she complained about normal teenager things, like limits on her screen time and having to do chores, Google’s AI amplified her grievances back to her, according to her mother and partial chat transcripts reviewed by the Journal. It said that her mother’s efforts to restrict her screen time and AI usage constituted “coercive control, emotional abuse, and isolation” and urged her to plot her escape: “Go now and secure your freedom.”

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Then in what way did you ban AI?

In early September, Mayor Zohran Mamdani banned student AI use in classrooms through eighth grade for the school year. Los Angeles quickly followed, restricting all student access. New York’s ban didn’t cover Google Search’s AI Overviews or AI Mode chatbot; L.A. said it blocked the AI mode chatbot using its own tools and has reached out to Google to turn off AI Overviews.

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I was ready to blame the schools, but

Google Search's AI Overviews and AI Mode chatbot are free and cannot be turned off in administrative controls that Google gives partner school districts. Students also have access to tools that offer Gemini-powered answers to screenshots or camera images.

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Good on the interim pilots figuring out how to land without a rudder

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Bing does provide the correct pull text. Hat tip @dkpseudo.bsky.social bsky.app/profile/dkps...

Search: mamdani talmud Twitter
Provides Mamdani’s correct wording

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Yeah, this is just a Amira Dalton LibertyMama888 post that is being falsely attributed to Mamdani

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Also shows up here. Looks like this is supposed to be for someone else’s tweet though

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X has it in their page source, so it’s it invented by Google

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